Beneath The Cherry Blossoms
by A Darker Rain
Summary: Chapter 3: Helpless: Sometimes your salvation comes in the very thing you hate....
1. Time

He loved her, no one could tell him he didn't. Years of fights and love, devotion and strength had given him a happiness he had yet known. She has given him sons, three sons with silver hair, two with their father's golden eyes. Only their daughter looked as her mother did. Ebony hair, long and graceful, and brown eyes that glittered with amusement and deviousness.

The summers had came and passed. And he grew wearily of another foe that came brandishing magnificent weaponry he couldn't defeat.

_Time._

There was no sword that could stop her from aging. No youkai trick he could use to force her body into defiance of that ruthless enemy.

And yet he couldn't leave her. Just couldn't go.

Even when she forgot him, and asked absently for the babies that were now grown and mated themselves.

Even as her brilliant hair grew as white as his own, and her face grew twisted with age.

He never left her.

Never loved her any less.

Their children came often, hugging their mother who only gazed through them. And sometimes she broke his heart by whispering endearments to the wall baring a name that wasn't his own.

Sometimes he angered when she pushed him away, snapped those dulling chocolate eyes, and demanded what she wanted under the threat of lonely nights. He hadn't the heart to tell her his nights were never lonely. Even if the pretty faces couldn't fill the void she was leaving.

He ached at times for her old fire. And though it shamed him, he was never as joyful at hearing her raspy, harsh voice, than he was when she was once younger. When her laughter rang like bells along the walls and trees and her smile rivaled the flowers in beauty. He longed for the days when she passionately clung to him during long nights, crying his name and clenching her teeth at the intensity of their love.

It hadn't been so for years.

And their children had grown, and missed her just as much as he. Their daughter spending endless hours petting her mother's hand, talking about the world when her eyes fogged all over again and she wondered aloud who her own daughter was.

The pain had been unbearable.

But he knew, knew the first moment he laid her down in his arms it would be this way. He knew that she would grow old before youth had even left him.

He knew.

Time was something different for them both. Weighted and measured for her, whose days grew short and moments more treasured, while he still had yet left the glory of his prime.

And as he stared at her grave, the pain welled up in his chest all over again.

The price for daring love a human.

* * *

ADR: For anybody who has ever loved a human/demon pairing. I didn't put any names in it, so they can be who you choose. 


	2. The Wildest of Hearts

He was something else.

Yeah, something completely different.

In a world of customs, traditions and unwavering beliefs, he blew in offering freedom from the chains I wore.

Nobody said that being born into wealth meant happiness. I have never been happier sleeping on the ground with him, than lying under warm pelts in a room that might as well been a prison.

And, as a lady, I was always given the best.

Maybe that was why it was so difficult to love him. I mean, who loves someone that treats them as a pet. You can't love something you don't respect. And you never respect what you can control.

Oh.

How he could shut me up with a disarming smile, a soft kiss, an almost chuckling growl. Or the way his fingers played along my body, tickling the sweetest sounds from my throat…..

Hm.

He always did say I amused him. But I had never been more content as his toy than somebody else's' trophy.

Rather bare his shame than another's awe. I cared not he was a demon, but I knew my human blood was more than a problem.

It was an outrage.

And a curse to me whom wanted no more than to hold him. What good is life if you can't enjoy it in love? And what good is love when the body is restrained to time?

We never had much time, my lord and I.

His visits were quick, even when I became pregnant. And our lovemaking was always far from humans and demons alike.

He'd sweep into my rooms, as I lied awake waiting for him. Even if he didn't come, the anticipation of the chance kept my body throbbing. I had never felt so scandalous, never so free.

But my lord was a spirit never meant to be tamed. And his heart was so dark, it barely recognized my affections.

But oh, if he could love I knew how it would be. I knew that his caresses would be so much softer, and his embraces that much tighter. I knew that when we talked he wouldn't avoid looking into my eyes, hiding the skeletons that drummed along his conscience.

Demons have consciences too you know. And they do experience emotion. Maybe not the finer ones, but the feelings are still real.

His joy was real when I revealed my pregnancy. And so was his disappointment. Always the rational thinker at the wrong time, my lord, always thinking of others when he should be as selfish as I was then.

I would have given anything to keep him.

My mother had taught me about her wandering husband. My father never kept his affairs secret. Instead he pranced mistresses up and down the chambers of his room, and lavished my dowry and my mother's jewels upon their bodies. She gave me morals. My mother gave me self-respect. The respect a lady needs to run a household, and to keep anger at bay when a husband strays from his wife.

For she told me they all did eventually.

But I was young. I was a fool. Two things that never really get along well do they? To think I thought that I, little Izayoi with the too big laugh and the too sharp tongue, would win the fidelity of a man like him.

To cage him was to cage the sun.

A man like mine didn't need words to understand my pain. My betrayal. Mother always said that you never lower yourself by confronting your husband with the truth. But I never listened to her anyways.

That's when I found out that I was the mistresses, and the true wife wasn't too happy with me.

And she really didn't like that I was growing his child.

I guess she thought more of him, as I. Maybe we both thought that his intimate touches and sweet, cooing words were all we needed. Or maybe she had what he had denied me.

Himself.

Yes, I shared his bed. I may as well have been one of the cheap whores my father treasured so much. But he never shared his secrets with me, his dreams, his fears. Even if he listened to mine with half an ear.

And during the night he would wake up sweating, ghosts haunting his dreams and his guilt thundering inside his chest. I would ask what's wrong, and he would tell me he still had worthy opponents to face.

I guess everybody has something they answer to.

I know this may sound strange, but I figured that, since I was the pregnant one, he would stay. I would never ask of him to leave his son, even if he was as cold as the winter snow, or the wife that had her own list of lovers.

I thought I could have the wildest of heart.

Oh, he was my everything. And there was nothing else that mattered then. No, he never was mine to claim.

But I have his son, more than any of my father's women could say.


	3. Helpless

**Helpless**

She wasn't sure when if first happened. She didn't remember much from then. She just knew she woke beside a man she didn't know, with memories that weren't truly her own. After weeks of thoughtless wandering, maybe it was the security that scared her more than he did.

She was afraid of him. Afraid of his golden eyes and otherworldly silver hair. She was afraid of his fangs, his claws, even his voice. He was strange. The entire world she'd fallen into was strange.

His touch was vile.

But without him she was dead again. Even if she knew, somewhere in that past of hers, behind the memories she didn't understand and were lost to her, that he was the cause of her death. She was breathing, yes. But she wad just as good as dead.

With him, she felt like it was okay to smile. And with him, sometimes the nightmares weren't so real. After all, she slept beside the worst one every night.

A good trade, no? Her body for piece of mind. It didn't matter. Sometimes, when the gods was merciful, she drifted away. Sometimes, they were cruel.

Like now.

Now as his heavy breathing labored against her neck, and his claws dug deep into her waist, drawing precious blood, now was not a time she could leave. He took her, angry and frustrated with her lack of response, he was hurting her. Destroying her.

His tears were upon her back, her shoulders. The mark of his teeth against the tenderest areas of her thighs. She stared up at wall, her hands splayed against it, holding their bodies from the splintered wooden floor. She felt as if she would like to cry. This invasion, it was….it was so familiar her head hurt. So familiar like his kiss, his fingers, his smile, his cry. So familiar was her name, raspy and strained, screamed into the dark of the night.

That was what hurt. His familiarity. His strange completion of the agony she found herself in.

He's done something, damnit, he'd done something she hated him for. And yet, yet she couldn't remember. She couldn't remember inside those desperate kisses that begged for forgiveness. She couldn't remember, regardless of the way he looked at her, with pain.

"Kagome, please," he was being brutal again. He told her once, he'd do anything to make her feel again. She could feel the blood running between them. Her blood.

But she would bare it. She would bare it because he was the key. He was the key to everything she ever loved, everything she ever wanted, everything she ever hated. He was everything.

She felt the tears come, mercifully easing the tightness in her chest. He was openingly sobbing, a sight she was quite used to now.

He collapsed against her, reaching the peak of his need and sending them both onto the ground. She laid, unfeeling in his arms. His salty tears mingling with her own. He kissed her, but, as always, she didn't kiss him back. And the rejected anger caused him to hold her closer, hold her so that he heard the crack of her ribs.

And when the anger drained with one look inside her empty eyes, he stopped the hurting and began the apologizing. She suffered his touch, using her fingers to drag long welts along his back, his neck. She wished to inflict pain, the pain he caused her, but he read her differently, and moved over her again.

She called it rape. He called it love.

She hated being so…helpless.

* * *

_Something I came up with just a few minutes ago after watching sad AMV's. It's not really good, after all, i'm in a great mood, maybe will rewrite it when i'm back down again...who knows._


End file.
